The European Union is a work in progress. It's aim is and has always been for ever closer union. So far it has not achieved those aims.

Charlemagne does expect the EU to work perfectly now and is surprised it does not. With his supporters in the USA and the UK he tries very hard to emphasise failures over achievements. He wants the EU and the Euro to fail.

Maybe isolating England as irrelevant to the further development of ever closer union, the Euro zone is on to a good thing. English conservatives and Euro sceptics are best excluded from further development.

Charlemagne could just as easily have made driving on the left as opposed to differing rail systems a reason for rubbishing the single market. He probably still thinks inches and miles are instruments to denigrate it.

Nationalism in any form is a recipe for conflict and is rife in England and among populist politicians. That is the danger facing us all and Charlemagne cannot stop himself feeding them with ill thought out negatives on European integration.

I am very interested in this single market. Where is it? We had an order for a £1,500,000 aircraft hangar for Toulouse. After 6months, and 60cm of paper files, we and our French customer had to give up, and he had to find a (more expensive) French competitor to do the work. It is not possible for a British firm to export hangars to France; yet we export 80% of our product worldwide, to Mongolia and Equatorial Guinea to Chile to Madagascar. There is no single market in Europe. It is a deceit even to name it thus.

Where has TE dug up this arch-pro Euro Charlemagne? One wonders.
Whilst the point of more single-market can’t and should not be argued, I find the fallacy – you need the Euro to do it – very dangerous and misleading. Why on earth do you need a single currency to align train regulation across the continent? You don’t.
The nicely scary picture of – if the Euro fails, the single market fails – is another way to present the Euro as “without alternative”.
B……t.
The real fallacy around the EU is cooked up from several delusional elements, creating a very unstable concoction, explosive indeed.
Firstly, amongst other reasons, the Euro was established as a step for the EU to become a “world power”, on par with the US, China. I suspect it is mainly the French elites who are after the EU as an extension of their own pride/power projections; however, this is not to assume the remaining elites can be absolved of similar delusions or aspirations.
There is currently no democratic majority for a federal Europe, which presents a dilemma for the assorted elites. While they would certainly prefer to cover more federalism with the appearance of democracy, they will push to realise their “game plan” regardless, even if this requires the creation of an undemocratic and totalitarian monster in Brussels. (Angie having grown up in eastern Germany doesn’t help here..)
Secondly, the EU was created to enable a balance between Paris and Bonn, before reunification. Now, however, it becomes ever more difficult to maintain the appearance of equality between the two, as Germany became not simply much bigger, but more productive as well. Up to now, Germany – out of shame guilt whatever, quietly paid and let Paris lead – not a sustainable option going forward, less acceptable for Berlin each day. The change of relationship will be awkward, and will need careful diplomacy.
Thirdly, with introduction of the Euro almost every rule in the textbooks was ignored, thus creating a time bomb with a built-in delayed detonator. Most of the requirements of a “optimal currency area” are not in place, especially deep is the rift between the so called core and periphery. And none of the requirements can be put in place in a time frame short enough to save the Euro.
Fourth, as long as everybody perceives the EU as free self-service station to feather the national nest – regulatory alignments such as train regulations will be difficult or impossible. (cue: Sir Humphrey Appleby) Especially, and there Berlin is to blame most for her delusional stance – nobody – really nobody wants to transfer an ounce of power to Brussels. (no contradiction to my first point, they are all in a “eat the cake and keep it” dream, and not only Berlin…)
Fifth, Europe, as most of the Western hemisphere has lived above her means for decades – and the Debt Mountains are finally coming home to roost. Partly exaggerated by the Euro, they require careful restructuring – politically unfeasible – as unfeasible as admitting that the Euro does not work.
Finishing the fateful Euro experiment would require to let go of the “game plan” – not going to happen – unless forced upon the elites by fate.
The centrifugal force behind this concoction is not to be underestimated – especially as the implosion will have to take place in an uncontrolled manner.
However, the alignment of train regulations would increase the efficiency of the infrastructure – this can be done either with or without the Euro, but not without a drastically realigned vision for the future of Europe. Unfortunately.

With the obvious exception of Spain, gauge isn't really an issue. Chuff-chuffs can drive all round Europe (on the left, of course) on Stephenson's 4’8½” standard gauge. The problem is the divergence in safety regulations and in signalling and other kit. The main reasons why the EU has been slow to tackle 'interoperability' are (1) rail is a minority mode and (2) some of the changes required are expensive and poor VFM. ERTMS (the EU promted system for stopping drivers passing signals at red) would save a few extra lives if introduced in the UK, but nothing like enough to justify the huge price-tag.

The 'failure' to make rail networks fully interoperable hurts rail more than it hurts the single market. It means more freight and passenger traffic going by road and air than would otherwise be the case. I doubt it has any significant effect on intra-EU trade and travel.

Charlemagne's 'rail diversion' distracts from the argument, rather than advancing it.

The subtitle of the article is misleading as it's hardly about the Euro. The disparate rails systems are not a good example. They are simply an unfortunate burden of the past nation states and their different rails standards, and are hugely expensive and impractical to fix. They are also a very minor problem compared with the Euro.
The suggestion on everyone's lips these days is "more integration". This fuzzy term absolves everyone who states it from making any concrete suggestions to how this might work and when. The EU these days cannot even agree on simple things such as bank regulation or transaction taxes. The ECB is ruling Europe via the printing press without democratic oversight.
More commissioners with more power? Commissioners are unelected bureaucrats. Extending their powers will only increase staffing power games among nations.
The main cause for most current problems is of course the Euro. Its economic effect is currently that many nations of southern Europe are simply not competitive, neither in manufacturing nor services. You suggest they need better access to neighboring markets. How can they compete with a currency that is no match for their productivity?
The current rabble of European leaders will continue with the cop-out of "more integration", thus shirk responsibility, muddle through, print money, entrench and the elites and their corrupt ways, creating an ever more explosive situation on the ground with rising animosity between the peoples of Europe. The huge fallacies of the last century could be repeated. While trying to postpone a minor train wreck European leaders are laying the groundwork for a catastrophic cataclysm that will happen under their successors. Good for them, bad for the people of Europe.

I don't understand your argument. The Single Market is imperfect. Obviously we would like it to improve. But what conclusions are we supposed to draw? And I don't see a connection between incompatible railway systems and the travails of the Euro.

"I suspect it is mainly the French elites who are after the EU as an extension of their own pride/power projections; however, this is not to assume the remaining elites can be absolved of similar delusions or aspirations."

yes German propaganda

the facts are telling different things, it's Germany the Gauleiter of the EU

It's time that the rebellion starts

If you don't like the euro, leave it, none will have to argument about that, in the contrary

but, of course, your competiveness will have a harder time to get a life, that is precisely why Germany stalmated the euro crisis resorption process

Trapped and blackmailed again. One day the german elite has to realize that the franco-german "frindship" is a joke. After 200 years we could finally learn something.I do not like it, but there is no alternative to a closer relationship to russia.
Lets pay and get out.They'll soon find out that they killed their cashcow.

Nope, closer to Russia will not help Germany. Neither short nor long term.
No clue how to transform the EU from a France to control Germany mechanism into something viable.
However, the blatent grab for the money - quietly negoiated under the protection from the diversionery media bomb shells of "euro bonds" and "fiscal overlord" - does not bode well. There is a limit to which the core can self sacrify itself to delay - mind you not stop - the declaration of insolvency and lower living standards in the periphery and France.
The only tie keeping the EU togehter is denial on all sides - as long as the politicians in Berlin and Paris pretend the extend and nature of the crisis (temporary dip vs. permanent structural differences and issues) - the measures will not make a difference - just delay the inevitable.

It is surprising anyone expected the concept of the EU to work better than this in light of the fact that it is really yet more excuses for politicians to obtain power and money.

All of the problems listed above have a common root cause, politicians and bureaucrats and probably unions and a variety of associations that are dependent on the government giving them protected and preferred control of certain industries. I suspect the reason the rail system problems of inconstant gauges, signals and all the rest of the problems will trace back to politicians attempting to protect their little fiefdoms on behalf of which ever companies or unions have control in any given country. The same would be true for air traffic control and the ports as well. It is easy to have open borders on land when it is primarily people and trade within europe. However, to access the world market requires ports and ships and no country is going to want to give up the effective monopoly on ocean shipping within their given country. If they did give up control, then each country would have to actually provide ports with better service and prices to get that type of business and politicians, especially have no idea what that even means. Air traffic control is another, only government can justify a ridiculous set of systems that controls the same physical space as America with less air traffic but costing twice as much. What should happen is either the entire EU adopt the American methods of managing airspace or come up with a better one but all of them use it.
The Euro itself is entirely different problem. It is undermining the EU because European politicians are socialists and believe money is both finite and has intrinsic value independent of anything else. When in fact money represents the value and because the time, ideas, people, objects and resources are all in effect unlimited, the money that represents those things is also unlimited. The problem the value of anything in particular changes over time and within a location and again socialists and their almost religious zeal to believe everything is equal, their management of money attempts to remove the fact some countries have more value than others, some resources are more valuable and some labor is more valuable.

As soon as the EU actually takes over sovereignty of their Euro and actually ties it to the value of the EU (everyone and everything in it) then all of the wild fluctuations of the Euro and its effects on the economy will diminish.

As far as the rest of the problems, they all have the same answer. As long as the political class in constantly in the way with their never ending regulation and taxes meant to in effect keep them in power, then the EU will always be like it is today. One example was the government providing preferred or protected status to certain companies to run the rail systems. This is an exact example of the political class using government to stifle a natural economy so they can maintain their own power by protecting a crony company's preferred access to a certain market.

Still having read the economist for a few years, it seems most still do not realize the very problems within any economy were caused by the political class, usually unintentionally and then the governments stack more and more laws on top of the initial problem they caused exacerbating it until it fails entirely. When in most cases, getting the politicians out of the way and ending the root cause they creates is a better answer.

Of course, Germans and those of like mind are OK with a strong currency precisely because it can promote efficiency. Anglo-Saxons tend to dismiss this idea. The situation with the Eurozone, as far as I can see, is that the centre is doing fine, while the periphery is fraying. What will happen? (1) The centre is strong enough to carry the periphery (2) The centre is infected by the periphery (3) The centre casts the periphery adrift

At the moment I suspect a tension between (1) and (2) with a distant but real possibility of (3).

Thanks to your comment, I do understand why Euro problems could affect the Single Market. It's a shame that Charlemagne's article is so incoherent.